


i slithered here from eden

by the_dot



Category: Damar Series - Robin McKinley
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Eventual Character Death, F/M, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-11-01
Packaged: 2021-01-08 03:57:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21229427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dot/pseuds/the_dot
Summary: This Blacksmith Had A Prophetic Dream. What Happens Next May Shock You!(Harry. Harry happens.)---edit 5.23.20: privated for eventual editing





	1. something so magic about you

**Author's Note:**

> some notes before we start:  
\- i don't remember the exact geography of the damarian continent, so i went with my best guess.  
\- also, changed some things (jack’s age/how long he’d been in ihistan, etc) for convenience. if it’s different from or doesn't match up with the book, imagine that it’s on purpose.  
\- this, uh, got away from me. i meant for it to be a bullet point fic, which is why the first part is Like That, but i didn't want to try to edit and end up abandoning it, like the last three damar series AUs i tried to do.  
\- title from hozier's From Eden. i was desperate and used the hozier fic title generator until i found one that kind of matched. i'll probably change it eventually.  
anyway. onto the fic!

A few decades before Thurra marches on Damar, one early spring night a young woman dreams of _kelar_-gold hair and horses and glittering pale eyes. As she blinks awake, her heart tugs her to the southeast.

Everyone in Damar knows _kelar _dreams when they have them, even if (especially if) they’re frustratingly unclear; she’s up and packed to go to Ihistan’s spring fair before dawn. Her family lets her go without complaint; she’s been before, even if not on a _kelar_-given task, and she's not going alone.

Once at the fair, she’s so focused on finding out what the _kelar _is asking of her that she doesn’t notice the young Outlander soldier turning the corner. After they’ve picked themselves off the ground and made the appropriate apologies, he smiles at her—smiles up, as his eyes are about level with her mouth—and, with halting Damarian, introduces himself as Jack.

He’s new to the continent, she discovers, and endlessly curious about everything from the names of the sparse plants around them to the pictures in the mosaic in the town square. It’s endearing, and she finds herself answering and laughing at him in equal measure—and before she realizes it, the sun is low over the hills and her friends are calling her back to camp.

“I wonder what your family would say if they could see you flirting with an Outlander,” one of her friends says dryly.

"If it were my family’s business, I’d wonder too,” she replies. She doesn’t deny the flirting; Jack was sweet, for an Outlander, and once he’d exhausted (or at least slowed) his endless questions he’d had interesting observations about the new world he found himself in. She even wonders idly if she'll see him again.

(If she were a little more familiar with _kelar_, she might have recognized it pushing the thought into her mind. Maybe she would’ve had the thought without the _kelar’s _help at all. In any case, she drifts off to sleep and does not dream.)

\---

Jack is there the next morning, and the next, and before she knows it two weeks have passed and it’s the last day of the fair. She still doesn't know why the _kelar_ led her here, to Jack; every time she considers doing anything else with her day, the _kelar _bangs on her skull until she changes her mind.

When she expresses these feelings to her friends, Derath sets down their embroidery to give her an unimpressed look.

"Miran," they say, "you're allowed to have a crush."

She glares at them.

"If you want to abandon your friends to flirt with your Outlander, you don't have to hide behind a _kelar_-given task—"

"I'm not _abandoning _you, it really does keep—"

"In any case," Derath continues, heedless of Miran's interruptions, "I don't want to ride with you like this—" here they gesture to the way Miran has dramatically draped herself over the largest possible space— "all the way back home. If you haven't done whatever it is you're meant to do before tomorrow morning, we're leaving you here."

Miran glares, but doesn't comment. Derath should try having their own mind shout at them endlessly. If this is how the royal family feels _all the time_, it's no wonder they're mad.

\---

She meets with Jack again. They chat and drift around the fair, as usual, and at nightfall she accompanies him to the bonfire in the center of Ihistan. (He won't go without her; he says it would look strange, and she can't deny that if he came alone he wouldn't be welcomed.)

At a particularly loud part of the story, Jack leans closer. “Forgive me if this is rude,” he says into her ear, "but I've been wondering—are they true?”

She's not flushing like a schoolgirl because he's pressed up against her side. She_ isn't. _"Are what true?”

As the storyteller reaches the climax of their tale, the fire climbs into the night without any help from human hands. Jack’s eyes follow it. “I’ve heard, um, stories from the general about...bad luck. Horses forgetting how to walk and wagon wheels shattering out of nowhere, that sort of thing, and now at the fair, stories about—magic and dragons and things. Are they true? Does your king call lightning to his hands, is he descended from gods?"

Miran hums. "What do you think?"

He meets her eyes, smiling ruefully. "I want it to be real, of course. Doesn't everyone?"

It occurs to her to be afraid for him—she’s never heard of _kelar_ bothering itself with Outlanders unless it’s trying to kill them, and hers led her straight to Jack. In that moment, she knows: she can't go home, not while _kelar_ is still trying to meddle with him and he can't even know.

"Your superiors might disagree," she says at last, and he laughs loud enough that the people surrounding them glare. Oops.

The next morning, she goes to the local smithy and offers her services. Her friends come to vouch for her, showing off the intricate knives or pins or jewelry she's made them, and when the smith hears her family's name he offers her a room in his home.

"Your mother taught me everything I know," he tells her after she's met his husband and sister and children. "I owe her a good deal. In time, we can see about more permanent lodging."

("I wasn't serious about leaving you behind," Derath tells her, voice muffled from where their face is pressed into her shoulder.

"I know."

"I'm going to tell everyone you were driven mad by _kelar,_ and then the king will have to come and deal with you, and then you're going to have to explain to him that you ran away to be with an Outlander."

"You won't.")

\---

"I thought you meant to leave," Jack asks when she sees him again, an odd light in his eyes. "Did you change your mind?"

"I did," she replies, trying to act like it doesn't matter. "I suppose I'll be seeing you."

He grins, eyes crinkling. "I suppose."

\---

Seven years later, Miran holds her daughter for the first time.

"Hello, Angharad," Jack coos, touching one pale cheek. The baby blinks at him crossly, and for a split second her eyes flash gold.

...Ah.


	2. something so tragic about you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miran is spooked; Richard is confused. Everybody's just doing their best.

"Angharad?" Richard asks when he hears it, wrinkling his nose. "That's a stupid name."

"_Richard._"

"It _is,_" he insists, then turns to the baby. "Hello, Angharad." When she immediately starts snuffling, he whips around to stare at his parents. "See? Even she thinks so."

Jack and Miran share a commiserating look.

"I'm calling her Harry," he decides, and Miran thinks of the seven different names he gave the little wooden horse the Greenoughs got him for his last birthday; surely it won't last.

\---

It lasts.

\---

The whole thing starts with names.

Charles and Amelia Greenough return from England after his knighting. They ask to meet with Jack and his family; they haven't seen each other for nearly two years, and they were good friends before. Jack and Miran of course gladly accept, and the Greenoughs come over for lunch.

Richard bounds out to meet them; he still loves his (still-unnamed) little horse, though the paint has nearly completely worn off. Harry is more subdued, as she always is with new people. The Greenoughs detangle themselves from a delighted Richard, then see Harry peeking out from behind her father's legs; Charles smiles, eyes crinkling, and after greeting Jack and Miran bends down to greet her.

"Hello, Miss Angharad," he says, undeterred by Harry's slight frown. "How do you do?"

Harry frowns at him and twists to look behind her. "My name is Harry. I am well." She mimics his bow, still frowning faintly, and starts when he booms out a laugh. "How do you do?" She looks at her mother by the end of her sentence, bewildered, and the last word tilts up like _is this right?_ It's easily the most adorable thing Miran's ever seen.

Miran doesn't remember much of the lunch itself. She likes the Greenoughs well enough, but it's indescribably boring to hear about politics she has no place nor interest in, and Amelia gives off the distinct impression of being intimidated by Miran, though she hides it admirably. Miran makes the appropriate noises in the right places, talks about how the children are doing (sparingly—the Greenoughs have been married for years, and they obviously love children, but have none of their own—it's not difficult to guess why their smiles become fixed) and forces a laugh through Charles's ribbing about Jack helping her clear the plates. Richard mostly ignores them all unless they're talking about him or Harry, preferring instead to finish as quickly as possible and drag his sister off to play; Harry goes, face clearing of the tiny frown that had persisted since she'd met Charles.

After the Greenoughs leave, Harry tugs lightly at Miran's sleeve where she's sitting in the big front window, sketching out a design. "Mama."

"Yes?"

"Why didn't he call me my name?"

It's a bizarre enough question that Miran stops what she's doing, raising an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"When Sir got here, he called me Angie something, and then he did it again when he left even though I told him before it wasn't my name."

Miran grimaces, and seeing her, Jack snorts. "It _is_ your name, little love," he says.

Harry's frown deepens. "No, it isn't. My name is Harry."

Miran sighs. "You know how my name is Miran, even though you call me Mama, and Baba is really Jack but you call him Baba?"

"Yes," Harry says. It had taken a long and confusing conversation to finally get it in the children's heads ("no, you shouldn't call me Jack, that's silly"), but it had, which was good because it was an experience Miran had no desire to repeat.

"When you were born, your Baba and I named you Angharad, except your brother decided you should be called Harry, and we called you that so you wouldn't be confused." Harry's still frowning. "Do you understand?"

Harry slowly shakes her head, her face scrunching. "I don't want to be Angharad, I'm _Harry_."

"That's too bad, little love," Jack laughs. "You can be both, though."

Harry shakes her head more furiously, her eyes flashing gold. Her face turns red and she clenches her fists, saying "I _don't WANT—_"

—and then the windows shatter.

Jack whisks a sobbing Harry out of the way. It's a good thing he did, because Miran is frozen; she flinches and turns so that no glass hits her eyes, but it scatters around her. She's probably going to have to move eventually, and she can hear Jack shouting her name—she doesn't think she's ever heard Jack raise his voice in all the years she's known him—but it's all a blur, because Harry just—Harry is—

Memories—why she came to Ihistan in the first place, the feeling of rightness that had come over her the first time she looked at Harry—wash over her like cold water. There was always a reason she came here; forgetting it doesn't change that.

She's never been so terrified in her life.

\---

"You don't understand—"

"_Help me _understand, then," Jack snaps, then visibly bites his tongue. "You don't tell me anything about—about your world, and I understand why you're hesitant, but—she's my daughter, too. And you know I'll believe you, no matter what." He sits and turns pleading eyes on her. "Help me understand, love, please."

Miran is silent for a long time. Then: "There is a story about the Crown Prince's son. He's a few years older than Richard."

Jack blinks. "...What does that have to do with—"

"They say he drove a nurse mad by looking at her too long. She was fine later, but never quite the same." She swallows. "His father, as a child, is supposed to have had a tantrum and been struck by lightning out of a clear blue sky. He only survived because—because there was someone who knew how to fix him." She's not going to try to explain what little she knows of Luthe. "Every Damarian king or queen has a story like that. They get upset, usually as a child, and they or someone else gets hurt."

"And that means?" Jack prods.

She explains, haltingly, a little about _kelar_ and the stories around it. "My family has it, a little; it's not unheard of for it to appear in someone not directly royal. We use it to bless swords to strike true, armor to never break, that sort of thing. I have a little more than most of them, and years ago, it led me here, and left me when I found you. And I don't _know_ what that means," Miran says, voice breaking. "I know Harry has it. I've known since she was born, but I thought—I thought she would just be good at fixing things, like me, and I've never heard of anyone other than the royal family doing anything like what happened today. I can't fix it, if anything happens. If—if you get hurt, or Richard, or Harry—"

"Or you," Jack murmurs, but he's not looking at her; he's frowning faintly at the candle, flickering without any breeze.

"And every royal who has such strength has some horrible fate waiting for them," Miran chokes. "I haven't thought about what my being led here must mean in so long—but the intended result was probably Harry, and now she exists and magic or Fate or anything else will do as it pleases with her."

Jack stays silent, but he gets up and puts his arms around her. She drops her head on his collarbone and tries not to cry.

"What if she wasn't here?" he asks at last.

Miran stills. "What?"

"I mean—here, in Daria," he clarifies. "We have stories about magic in England, but no evidence—do you think Damarian magic would still work there?"

Miran blinks. "...Huh."

\---

A lot of confusing things seem to happen all at once. A little after Mr. and Mrs. Greenough left, all the windows in the house shattered, and Richard can't quite figure out why; Mama says Harry is sick, even though Harry looks fine, though she is acting a little different; and Harry screamed, very loudly (probably she was scared by the windows, Richard thinks), and then fell silent, and didn't speak again for two whole days. She's been frowning and squinting at everything, and not even Baba making funny faces at her (usually her favorite pastime) can get her to smile again.

He knows that Harry got upset when she found out her real name was Angharad (and he feels slightly guilty about that; it really _is _a silly name, though, especially for such a little person, and he hopes he isn't a bad brother for thinking so) and he knows that something happened to the windows; Mama got very frightened when they broke. She says they have to leave their home, because there aren't any people who can help Harry be well again here. He doesn't quite like the idea of_ staying_ away from home, but Baba says there isn't as much sand in England, and Richard supposes it'll be different, at least. He's curious about snow.

He's tried to ask Harry if she's alright, because if she's so sick they have to go find a special doctor three months' travel away and he didn't notice then he really is a bad brother, but Mama always interrupts him.

"You can't play with her right now, dear," Mama says, gently but firmly guiding him away. "She's not well."

Richard pouts—Harry's little, but she's so much more fun than the other children their age—and asks, "When can I play with her again?"

"When she's better," Mama says after a long pause.

Mama's been strange lately, too; she keeps acting as if nothing is wrong, but there's a tight, worried look on her face when she thinks Richard can't see. Harry seems to be noticing it as well, her eyes tracking Mama until Mama looks at her and she pretends to be interested in her fork or dress or braid. She's acting quieter, too, until she throws another screaming fit that has Mama sendingRichard out of the room.

He hopes there's a doctor in England that can help. He'll miss home, but he misses his little sister more.

\---

The steamship is huge, and scary, and Richard hates the way it sways under his feet. Harry loves it, of course; she makes Baba hold her up on his shoulderss she can see over as much of the ship as possible, giggles at the seagulls that harass the passengers for crumbs, and stares wonderingly at the glittering sea. For the weeks aboard the _Cec__i__lia _she's happier than she's been in ages, and Mama and Baba finally look like they're relaxing.

Harry's not quite as joyful when they first step into Baba's old house, but it's not the stony silence of the months before. She wanders around curiously and sneezes at the dust, which makes Baba smile sheepishly.

"It's been sitting for a while," he says, striding over the window and pulling it open. "I can see about hiring some help to clean it out."

"I'm sure we can do it ourselves," Mama says. "It'll be something to do, at least, right?"

Harry sticks the silver necklace Mama gave her in her mouth and doesn't answer.

Richard doesn't either; he's too busy exploring. The new house is big, much bigger than their house back home—or back in Daria, he supposes, since this is home now—and the same style as Mr. and Mrs. Greenough's house, full of dark wood and mysterious creaky noises. He can't see any stone or clay at all, and it's beyond strange. He follows Baba curiously to one of the windows and gasps when the curtains part; there's a whole forest stretching out into the distance, and it's the most green Richard's ever seen in one place.

Baba smiles down at him and ruffles his hair. "Would you like to explore, tomorrow after breakfast?"

_"Y__es please_," Richard says, and Baba laughs. Mama grins, and it almost feels normal again; except Harry is at the window too now, staring out over the woods, and the frown is back. When Richard looks at her, the setting sun has turned her eyes yellow, and suddenly he can smell the burning desert sand and feel the heat beating at his face; but then she blinks and turns away, the chain glinting around her neck, and it's just the smell of dust getting in his nose. He sneezes violently.

"I wanna explore too," Harry announces. Mama smiles, says "Maybe," and steers her away.

(They don't end up exploring. They do clean the entire house, top to bottom, and Richard will dust every day for the rest of his life if it means he never has to sneeze that much again.)

\---

A few weeks after they're settled in it occurs to Richard that, to his knowedge, Harry hasn't seen a doctor.

"Did she get better?" he presses. "If she's better, can I play with her again?"

Mama and Baba share a Look. It's one of the annoying things adults do, he's found; but they get cagey if Richard asks what they're about, so he stays quiet and waits for an answer.

"She's not...quite better," Mama says at last, and when Richard slumps she sighs and takes his hand. "It's hard to tell. We won't know if she's better for a long while. It isn't dangerous to play with her anymore—but you have to be careful, and you can't make her upset, and you probably shouldn't without someone watching. I didn't want you to worry about it." She smiles, but it's not a happy one; the tightness around her eyes is back, and for a moment Richard regrets asking. "But you've been worried anyway, haven't you? My sweet boy."

Baba takes his other hand and pulls him into a hug. Mama wraps her arms around the both of them. After a silence, Richard tentatively speaks up: "Maybe if it doesn't rain tomorrow, we can all go explore the woods? Like we said we would? Is that careful?"

"Yes," Baba says, voice muffled from where his face is pressed into Richard's hair. "That's fine, we'll—we'll do that."

"Okay." Richard considers fidgeting until they let go—he's getting too old to be snuggled like this—but he pretends, for a second, that everything's fine and Harry's okay, and lets his parents hold him until he can't pretend anymore.

\---

("I didn't even think about what it might be doing to him, not knowing."

"Will we ever tell them?"

"...Maybe. One day. When whatever's supposed to have happened...doesn't happen, I suppose.")

\---

Two months into their new lives, just after Harry's third birthday, Richard finds out that Baba's going back to Daria, and this time he's the one who cries; it's not fair, why does Baba get to go back? Why is he leaving? He doesn't let Mama or Baba try to explain, just slips out of the house and hides in the woods the first chance he gets.

He comes to a stop at a big old oak tree not far from the edge and huddles at the base of it, miserable, fiddling with the necklace Mama gave him just before they left home. It's shorter than Harry's—it comes down to his collarbone, while Harry's goes far down her belly and has to be carefully looped around itself so it doesn't just fall off—Mama says her chain was harder to take apart, but Richard's can have pieces added to it again later. Both have tiny, intricate designs etched in every link; Harry's desgins are sharp and angular while Richard's loop and swirl, and there's a ring on both, identical to the other, that Mama says they can wear when they get older. He knows the design on the rings means their family, because when Mama's Mamas came to visit when Harry was born and gave her a soft blanket embroidered with the same design they told him so, and taught him the sounds of each of the Damarian letters surrounding the design that meant their name: Kerantil. He tries to recite the letters under his breath, finds he can't remember, and starts crying again.

He feels something warm plop down at his side, and he sniffs, looks up, then scrambles upright.

"_Harry_," he scolds, making to grab her but thinking better of it. "You shouldn't be out here!"

"_You _were," she says, blinking up at him. "Mama and Baba said we shouldn't go out alone, and now neither of us are alone."

Mama and Baba had almost certainly meant "you shouldn't go outside without a grown-up," but thinking that just reminds him that he's about to have only one grown-up to go outside with, and Mama hates the rain so it won't be nearly as often, and he bursts into tears a third time except this time is worse because Harry can see it and Richard's supposed to be careful and not upset her.

When he's run dry—for now—Harry's not looking at him; she's staring at the big house.

"I've decided I'm calling you Dickie," she says.

Richard blinks. "Why?"

"Do you remember the story Baba read us about the boy named Dickie?"

"...Yes?"

"I asked him to tell me more about it later and he said the boy's name wasn't really Dickie, it's Richard, but he said it was Dickie because sometimes people who are called Richard are also called Dickie and he didn't want us to be confused." She finally pauses to take a deep breath, and she hasn't talked this much in _months_. He could cry again. "And you call me Harry, even though it's not my name," she adds. "I want to call you something."

It's strange enough that it startles a laugh out of him; Harry smiles. "Want to go explore?"

He should say no, but she looks fine; she's still smiling, and she made it out here on her own, and they're definitely already in trouble for coming out alone, and he doesn't really want to go back inside.

"Alright," he says, and takes his little sister's hand as they set off into the woods.

(Later—after they've been scolded for staying out so late without grown-ups, checked over for scrapes, and sent to bed without dessert—Dickie will think about Harry's face when Baba had told them the news: they had all looked over to her instinctively, as if waiting for something, but she had just frowned faintly, only getting distressed when he'd started crying.

He dismisses it; probably he just didn't notice. He was preoccupied, after all, he couldn't have really been paying attention.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (edited for typos and missing words. one day i'll figure out how to proofread.)  
absolutely no one, including myself, expected me to finish the second chapter this quickly. i cannot promise this pace in the future, but HOOOOLY SHIT it was fun. i can't remember the last time i wrote this many words in one sitting.  
next up: something with harry! not sure what yet. this was intended to be her whole childhood and then the next chapter was going to cover the events of the book, but obvs that didn't happen. one day i'm going to write something about jack and miran pre-babies, but today is not that day. (only slightly related: i've decided that miran is terrible at naming things—all animals are Baby, for instance—and so she left the names up to jack, which is why neither of the kids have damarian names.).  
once again, i'm [damarcore](https://damarcore.tumblr.com) on tumblr for mckinley-related things and my main blog is [the-dot.](https://the-dot.tumblr.com) i'm always down to yell about anything mckinley! come say hi!

**Author's Note:**

> it's a dadjack au, folks. i meant for it to be about three bullet points with cutesy headcanons about jack dadding harry and richard, but miran just would not shut up. i love her.  
i have a few more things planned (a bit about harry's childhood, some minor changes made to the actual book's plot, and an epilogue of sorts) but if i didn't post this now it would've sat in my drafts for eternity.  
if you want more damar series content, i occasionally shitpost for damar at [damarcore](https://damarcore.tumblr.com) on tumblr and my (much more active main blog is [the-dot.](https://the-dot.tumblr.com) come say hi!


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